LizardIRC/Linking policy

LizardIRC always welcomes donations, and this includes additional servers for linkage to the network. However, due to the needs of the network, such donations must meet certain criteria, as detailed on this page.

Requirements

More than one server may be donated at once, but they must all comply with the following requirements:

The owner/donor (one with root access) must have a sufficient level of trust. This does not necessarily mean being a network staff member, but it does mean that we should know him or her well. In particular, it is preferred that he or she has participated in #lizardirc or other official channels for a substantial amount of time, and he or she must have a good record of behavior.

The owner/donor agrees to notify network staff within a reasonable timeframe of any maintenance requiring possible disruption of network services, such as reboots for software upgrades.

Owner/donor agrees that editing of any configuration or IRCd file must not be done by anyone other than FastLizard4 and JD, and that doing otherwise is grounds for immediate delinking without further notice.

Linkage is considered a donation. As such, the server/owner and any pre-existing operators of that server are not automatically entitled to consideration for network staff access. Unless they already happen to have network staff roles on LizardIRC, the server/owner and pre-existing operators must relinquish any pre-existing oper access to the server.

Noncompliance with any part of this agreement is grounds for delinking at staff discretion.

LizardIRC staff reserve the right to delink and remove from rotation, temporarily or permanently, any server, at their discretion, for any reason.

Technical

The owner/donor should give the network owners, FastLizard4 and JD, shell access, at a permission level sufficient to allow the installation and running of InspIRCd.

The operating system must be a relatively recent Linux distribution (i.e. one that is still supported by its vendor).

Required packages include but are not limited to perl (for configuration script only), libgnutls, libpcre, and gcc (c++).

The following (TCP) ports must be available for our (exclusive) use: 6660 - 6669, 6697, 8001, 8002, 9999, and at least one other port for server linkage (at the owner's/donor's discretion). The ports 7000 through 7009 are also highly desired for exclusive LizardIRC use, but not required.

The server must be capable of reliably providing the always-on service of an IRC server. This includes but is not limited to:

It must have decent performance. If the system will not run any other programs, then 256 MB is the minimum RAM amount, with at least 512 recommended. More RAM is required if other programs, such as mysql, are running.

The CPU should be at least 750 MHz.

Its connection must be very reliable. This rules out home servers and certain VPS providers such as OVH.

OpenVZ containers are only acceptable if the host maintains the clock very accurately, as only the host node can change the system time on such systems.

At least 250 MB of disk space available for logs and IRCd files.

IPv4 connectivity is required. In particular the server must have at least one public static IPv4 address on which the IRCd can listen on the ports it needs to.

IPv6 connectivity is very strongly recommended. Only if the owner/donor cannot obtain public IPv6 connectivity for the server for reasons outside of his or her control will IPv4-only servers be accepted.

As with IPv4, there must be at least one public static IPv6 address with the required ports available.

If native IPv6 connectivity is not available, IRC-unblocked Hurricane Electric tunnels are acceptable (note: this excludes gogo6.com and most other brokers because they are not sufficiently reliable; also, SixXS specifically prohibits running an IRCd using their tunnels, so it is also not acceptable). Note that Hurricane Electric blocks IRC by default. The tunnel user should be the same as the owner/donor and, to unblock IRC, must have the "Sage" level in the Hurricane Electric IPv6 certification program.

The server should be well-maintained, especially in terms of security.

Application process

Ensure all requirements are met.

Contact FastLizard4 or JD, or email network staff with your proposal. Please give us the following information: